On the west bank of the Yellow River, the Ninth Fort.
Shang Kexi holds the sword high in his hand and is giving orders in an orderly manner.
Following Gao Kexi's command, the Han army's musketeers stepped forward one after another and fired at the outside of the fort.
Accompanied by the sound of "boom, boom, boom, boom", the Ming army on the opposite side fell in a pool of blood. After about 10% of the soldiers fell, the remaining Ming army finally collapsed and screamed.
Fleeed back.
However, before Shang Kexi could take a breath, another group of Ming troops came up carrying wooden signs.
"Flan cannon, prepare!" Shang Kexi gave the order, and two groups of Han troops pushed up the two Franco cannons.
The weight of these two Franco machine guns is about seven to eight hundred kilograms, and they are fixed on two wooden gun mounts. There are small wooden wheels at the bottom of the two wooden gun mounts, which can slide freely.
The Han troops who followed Shang Kexi were mostly the frontier troops from Dongjiang Town.
These frontier troops have been fighting for many years and have extremely rich experience in artillery operations.
Quickly fill in the sub-cannon, lock it tightly, and then correct the firing angle.
After locking, the gunner inserted the red-hot iron drill through the fire door.
Then there was a bang, and the two cannons slid back together with their bases.
At the same time, thousands of lead pieces of one or two weight were thrown over in a fan shape.
The Folan cannon can be loaded with shotshells and closed-mouth bullets. When shooting at the wooden sign array of people and horses, it is loaded with two hundred stone bullets of two or two weights or five hundred lead bullets of one or two weights. When shooting on boats and carts, it is loaded with twenty-five kilograms of closed-mouth bullets.
bomb.
At this time, they were loaded with one or two loads of shotshells, and the two cannons had a thousand shotshells!
In an instant, thousands of shotshells poured in a fan shape on the Ming army's wooden sign array.
Accompanied by the sound of "pop, bang", the dozen or so wooden signs held up by the Ming army in front were instantly riddled with holes, and the first row of Ming soldiers huddled behind the wooden signs were also shot into sieves.
The Ming army's wooden sign array had no problem resisting the heavy arrows of the larger bows, and it was not satisfactory against bird cannons and even Lumi cannons, but it was really ineffective against the shotgun shells used by the Franco machine guns.
A cannon is still a cannon, no matter how powerful it is, it cannot be compared to a cannon.
More than a dozen Ming soldiers fell to the ground and died without even making a sound.
"Musketeers..." Shang Kexi was about to order the musketeers to come forward.
But they found that the Ming army on the opposite side had collapsed. After the wooden sign formation was destroyed and the dozen or so Ming troops in front were beaten into pieces, the Ming army behind them suddenly collapsed.
This performance was even worse than the one just now.
The attack just now managed to withstand two volleys of cannon fire.
"Bah, a bunch of trash." Shang Kexi spat at the retreating Ming army and cursed disdainfully, "More than ten years have passed and there is still no progress at all."
"Boom!" Suddenly there was a violent crash behind him.
Immediately, the entire fort trembled slightly, but Shang Kexi didn't take it seriously at all. He knew without turning around that it was the Hongyi cannon from the Ming Navy's warship that hit the fort.
But this is nothing, because the protective wall built on the side of the fort facing the Yellow River has a large inclination and is extremely thick, so the Hongyi cannon of the Ming Navy did not pose a threat at all.
At most, it would just make a few big dents in the parapet.
Shang Kexi didn't even plan to move to the outside of the fort to direct the Hongyi cannon in action.
Because the Ming infantry on the ground was obviously a greater threat than the Ming navy on the river, he had to stay inside the fort to command the musketry team and the Fran machine gun in combat.
In the light of the fire, the Ming army on the opposite side suddenly dispersed to both sides.
"Your Majesty, the red cannon!" Some Han soldiers shouted in horror.
"Huh?" When Shang Kexi looked intently, he saw that the Ming army used ox carts to pull a dozen Hongyi cannons and dragged them to a distance of more than 500 steps from the fort. The Ming army artillery began to drive iron drills into them.
At such a long distance, the power of the Fran cannon's shells is obviously insufficient.
"Hose the mouth bomb!" Shang Kexi immediately roared at the top of his lungs, "Place the mouth bomb!"
The artillerymen from Dongjiang Town were indeed very capable. They replaced the sub-cannon with closed-mouth ammunition as quickly as possible, and then loaded the sub-cannon with twenty-five kilograms of double-loaded ammunition in less than a moment.
However, the reaction of the Ming army on the opposite side was not slow either.
Just when the Eight Banners and Han troops were preparing the Fo Lang machine gun,
On the opposite side, the Ming army also built an earth wall in front of the Hongyi cannon.
"You are a thief!" Shang Kexi couldn't believe his eyes.
At this moment, the Ming army's artillery actually built an earth wall in front of the Hongyi cannon?
After taking a closer look, Shang Kexi discovered that it was not a rammed earth wall, but a sack wall made of sacks. However, the sacks were probably also filled with sand, and their defensive power was probably about the same as that of a rammed earth wall.
The key is that the protective wall made of hemp bags also has a large inclination.
Sure enough, although the two muzzleloaders accurately hit the target,
However, it was of no use; it only destroyed a section of the earthen wall.
The Ming army's artillery quickly brought in more sacks and quickly repaired the earthen walls.
The Eight Banners Han Army fired two more shots, which also hit the target, but still to no avail.
When the Eight Banners Han Army fired its fourth sub-cannon, the Hongyi artillery on the opposite side finally opened fire.
Shang Kexi only felt a flash of red light, and then there was a loud bang in his ears, followed by a crashing sound, and most of the protective wall inside the fort collapsed in an instant.
The lethality of the Hongyi cannon is incomparable to that of the Fran cannon.
Because the diameter of the Hongyi cannon is larger than that of the Folan cannon, the barrel is longer, and the projectiles are heavier. The key is that the air tightness of the Hongyi cannon is far better than that of the Folang cannon, and the kinetic energy of the projectiles is greater!
More than a dozen Hongyi cannons gathered together, and with just one salvo, half of Jiannu's ninth fort was destroyed.
Shang Kexi and nearly a hundred Han soldiers guarding the back wall fell from the wall in an instant and were almost buried alive. Shang Kexi, a traitor, even bumped his head against the earthen pull and fainted on the spot.
When Shang Kexi regained consciousness, he was carried onto the pontoon by the soldiers.
"Ah Qi, where is this?" Shang Kexi felt that his forehead was sticky, and when he reached out and touched it, it was covered with blood.
"Your Majesty, they are on the pontoon." A soldier named Ah Qi gasped. "The forts on the west bank of the Yellow River cannot be defended. Shi Dutong has ordered that all Han troops retreat to the east bank."
Shidutong is a real stone pillar on the forehead of Gushan Mountain in Zhengbai Banner.
Shi Tingzhu is considered a promising lieutenant given by Dorgon.
After Shang Kexi was injured and fell into coma, Shi Tingzhu took over the command of the Eight Banners Han Army.
"Retreat?" Shang Ke said happily, "Where are the red cannons left on the west bank fort?"
"It exploded, it's all exploded." Ah Qi said helplessly, "The red cannon is too heavy and can't cross the pontoon bridge."
"Exploded? All exploded?" Shang Kexi couldn't help but feel disappointed after hearing this. Now the Eight Banners Han Army lost more than fifty red cannons, and the number of red cannons was already less than two hundred.
…
As the night passed, the eastern sky gradually turned white.
The entire battlefield was also revealed to Chongzhen's vision one after another.
Looking around, we can see that the Jiannu blockade ditch south of the Yellow River has been basically filled in, the protective walls and fortresses along the blockade ditch have also been knocked down, and dozens of forts on the west bank of the Yellow River have also been razed.
In addition, all five pontoon bridges used to build the Slave Bridge were also destroyed.
However, the Ming army's attack on the east bank of the Yellow River suffered a disastrous defeat.
In fact, Chongzhen already knew the result last night.
Facts have proved that Chongzhen's hopes for the Ming Dynasty's border troops were still a bit high.
In the battle on the west bank of the Yellow River, since there were only a small number of Eight Banners soldiers in Jiannu, and the remaining tens of thousands were civilians, they were quickly beaten by the Ming army. The Eight Banners Han army, which still had some combat effectiveness, was also defeated by Qu Sha.
Wei's artillery team led a backstab, but when crossing the river to attack the east bank fort, Qu Shawei's artillery team was no longer able to provide a backstab.
Because the forts on the east bank of the Yellow River were built toward the west, and the west side is the front.
The rammed earth wall on this side of the fort is thick and has a large inclination, and the Hongyi cannon is helpless.
What's more, Qu Shawei's artillery team couldn't cross the Yellow River at all, so they had to rely on the navy's Hongyi cannon.
Due to the limited tonnage of the bird ship, the navy's Hongyi cannon was lighter and had a smaller diameter, so its lethality was naturally not comparable to that of Qu Shawei's artillery team.
Therefore, the frontier armies of Jin Shenghuan, Wang Zuntan and Ma Huabao attacked three times, but all ended in disastrous defeats. More than a thousand soldiers of the frontier army who were involved in the attack were either killed by the Han army with cannons or driven into the Yellow River and drowned.
Only a few soldiers with good water ability escaped across the Yellow River, including Jin Shenghuan himself.
"Your Majesty, I am incompetent." Jin Shenghuan came to Chongzhen in disgrace.
Jin Shenghuan was so embarrassed that in order to cross the river to escape, he took off his armor and sank to the bottom of the river.
Wang Zuntan and Ma Huabao also looked frightened, thinking that only half of the tasks assigned by the Holy Father had been completed. A reprimand would be inevitable, and if they were unlucky, they would be punished.
However, what was surprising was that Chongzhen did not scold them.
Instead of scolding, Chongzhen helped Jin Shenghuan up.
"Jin Qing, you have done your best." Chongzhen helped Jin Shenghuan up, then turned back to Wang Zuntan and Ma Huabao and said, "You have also done your best. Go back to the camp and rest first."
"Your Majesty, please leave." Jin Shenghuan and the other three limped away.
Watching Jin Shenghuan and the others leave, Chongzhen said helplessly to his two sons and a group of scholars: "This is our most elite frontier army in the Ming Dynasty. The ten-town frontier army has nearly 60,000 elites attacking in large numbers, and there are still 3,000 more."
The cavalry and artillery teams assisted in the battle, and there were naval troops on the Yellow River to assist in the battle, but they were still beaten like a bear."
Zhu Cihong, Zhu Cijiong and other scholars were also quite speechless.
Although there is no statistics yet, the casualties of the Ming army will definitely not be small.
The navy alone lost more than a dozen warships and more than 200 officers and soldiers were killed.
As for the frontier troops from the ten towns that attacked, the number of casualties was at least three to four thousand.
Now I just don’t know how many troops there were in total among the Jiannu who were defeated by the Ming army? How many real slaves were there among them? How many were there in the Eight Banners Han Army and the Eight Banners Mongolia?
Chongzhen continued: "How many troops do you think Jiannu has on the opposite side?"
Zheng Sen said: "Judging from the fighting last night, there are about 10,000 slaves guarding the blockade ditch, and there are also about 10,000 slaves in the hundreds of forts along the blockade ditch."